Advice against Eldar

Hello all,

I am playing in a six week league at my local game store and I have managed to get to the top table. There are two weeks left in the league and I am looking to take the top spot. However, tomorrow night, I am staring down a confrontation with the only other undefeated player in the league~ A dreaded Craftworld Eldar player. I am looking for some advice from my fellow denizens of the dark realm on how to beat him.

Here's the background: The event is a single CAD league. No LOW, no super heavy units, and no allies. Also a full third of your army must be troops. The missions are always objective based. I am playing the following:
Haemonculi with Armor of Misery and flesh gauntlet
3x Grotesques
5x venom with 5 warriors and blaster
1 x raider with 5 warriors and blaster
2x razorwing jet fighter
2x Talos unit with 3 talos each with Haywire

The grotesques and the Haemonculi go in the raider.

Thus far I have beaten Marines, Imperial Guard, drop pod Marines, and Demonkin (with three Helldrakes and three big walker guys with torrent ap3 flamers, ugh).

I have seen what my opponent usually runs and it's not pretty. He usually runs lists with the following units:
An assortment of Eldar str 6 gunbikes
A squad of 3 eldar hornets (ugh)
Warp spiders
That bike unit with the psykers on bikes
A void shield generator to keep them all safe...

I have a tough time getting though that shield because I don't have a lot of range beyond the haywire. Even if I did bring enough dark lances to pop the shield, I think he'd blow me off the table while I did it. I've thought about dropping in with Haywire to take out the shield generator, but in order to do that I'd need a ton of scourges... Not sure what to do here. Any help? Advice? Thanks. RB

Is it possible for you to WWP in behind the shield? If so, Medusae are devastating to Eldar jet bikes. Also, along the same lines, I'd highly recommend the Armor Misery + Archangel of Pain + WWP combo against Eldar as well. Jet bikes and Warlocks on jet bikes are only Ld 8. The AoM and Archangel lower that to 4. I've seen firsthand how devastating this is to Eldar. If your opponent clumps up to make sure everybody is behind the Void Shields, this would be like setting off a nuclear explosion in the Eldar ranks. Putting Phantasm Grenade Launchers is also useful. Basically you're using a modified Freakshow list/tactic here, which Eldar are quite susceptible to.

The best way to deal with Eldar is to bring Eldar of your own, of course.

I am speaking about Aspect host detachment. It confers a nice little bonus of either +1 BS or +1 WS to all units taken as part of it, which means BS5 Dark Reapers and Fire Dragons. Reapers sinergize nicely with an imperial bastion, which also has a comms relay option to make your reserves more reliable. And Fire Dragons can help with Hornets, which shoudl ease the pressure on the rest of the army.

I've beaten eldar an eldar bike list before, here's a few tips for your list if you expect him to bring almost all bikes:

- close combat units are generally useless; he will always move out of range, and his overwatch  is deadly,
- venoms are great; although the splinter rifles or blaster from the Warriors inside are generally out of range, the 36" for the cannons is almost always enough to get in range,
- razorwings are great too if you expect him to include one or two infantry squads such as warp spiders, better equipped with disintergrator canons and splinter cannon,
- mandrakes are good distraction, since he doesn't seem to have much ignore cover or close combat stuff himself,
- reaver jet bikes are good distraction as well, and really potent for last turn objective grabbing, if they last that long,
- disintergrator ravagers are useful,
- use wwp for either a squad of blasterborn or a freakshow component.

In general you want masses of long range shots. You are also in luck in that he doesn't have many vehicles, so one wwp trueborn squad and cc reavers should be enough to keep the hornets busy.

Gamewise, here are some tips:

- concentrate objectives in one area, preferably near a board edge or corner, so that he can't afford to jet away and leave the objectives,
- depending on the type of game, you may either try to deploy everything close to the objective, or overload the opposite flank, then stick a unit with high cover saves (mandrakes, reavers) on the their side to keep his stuff occupied,
- always go for nightfighting,
- except for the reavers, don't jink your stuff; he usually has enough shots to kill the vehicles anyways, and if the flicker field saves those shots you don't want to lose a turn of shooting,
- expect lots of invisibility, so just focus fire on the units without psychic buffs; he can't protect all his units so work around the invisibility if possible,
- I would use reavers to turbo to the hornets on the first turn and make him panic; they will draw fire and let your other stuff have a turn to get going.

That's all of it, I think. One side note on my game, though; I overloaded one flank with a unit of mandrakes on the other, which kept half his army occupied for three turns, eventually dying to striking scorpions. This allowed the rest of my army to fully control the other half of the board. In those last three turns I executed a sort of wave motion where his bikes were stuck on the other half and I was just pushing everything down his throat.

Edit: should've asked beforehand, are you allowed bring a different list, or does it have to be the one you posted above?

sweetbacon wrote:

Is it possible for you to WWP in behind the shield?  If so, Medusae are devastating to Eldar jet bikes.  Also, along the same lines, I'd highly recommend the Armor Misery + Archangel of Pain + WWP combo against Eldar as well.  Jet bikes and Warlocks on jet bikes are only Ld 8.  The AoM and Archangel lower that to 4.  I've seen firsthand how devastating this is to Eldar.  If your opponent clumps up to make sure everybody is behind the Void Shields, this would be like setting off a nuclear explosion in the Eldar ranks.   Putting Phantasm Grenade Launchers is also useful.  Basically you're using a modified Freakshow list/tactic here, which Eldar are quite susceptible to.  

You can't take Armour of Misery + Archangel of Pain on the same model, so this is quite an expensive tactic, especially as you are only likely to put 3 wounds on each unit that's within 9". I'd be surprised if it's more than 2 units and you can only use it once ....

Second that about Armour of Misery and the archangel of Pain. Too bad that you can't tailor your list now. My only tip: get every possible objective in the open and try to lure him there. How do you generate victory points? Each turn or and the end of the game?

I've run two archons for Archangel + AoM before, in a squad of incubi. I also ran a wwp and two shadowfields. Makes for a really tough and killy unit, albeit expensive. Would not recommend against Edlar bikes, except possibly when substituting incubi with blasterborn. Then you don't need two shadowfields either.

E: that might really not be a bad idea, actually; two archons with shadowfields and blasters, plus wwp, armour of misery, archangel, then blaster trueborn, in a raider with shields and grenade launchers. I might try that out.

Not sure how your haemonoculus and his gang share a raider with the warriors (or do they have their own?) or you deploy the warriors on foot. I would recommend deploying second so you can concentrate your army on one flank . He can only kill so many units turn 1 and its always to your benefit if you make his guys move up to you.
You are going to have to rely on your razorwings to come in turn 2 and give you enough momentum from their 4 large blasts each to get your army in front of his face.

Play with tons of terrain, it benefits you more than him (Try to get your transports wrecked right beside ruins if they are going to die, free 6" move into ruins for that unit popping out).
Camp your talos well, those things can be a thorn in his side if you manage to put them in LOS blocking terrain that happens to create a buffer zone for your men behind.

Also get his bikes to jink, if you can point a blaster at that psychic unit it will make him sweat.

As for the hornets....just keep your venoms far away from those things. Pray your Razorwings work well.

TLDR: Get blown up beside ruins. Get bikes to jink. Hire competent Razorwing pilots. If your talos gets into melee, bring out the champagne.

Hellstrom wrote:

sweetbacon wrote:

Is it possible for you to WWP in behind the shield?  If so, Medusae are devastating to Eldar jet bikes.  Also, along the same lines, I'd highly recommend the Armor Misery + Archangel of Pain + WWP combo against Eldar as well.  Jet bikes and Warlocks on jet bikes are only Ld 8.  The AoM and Archangel lower that to 4.  I've seen firsthand how devastating this is to Eldar.  If your opponent clumps up to make sure everybody is behind the Void Shields, this would be like setting off a nuclear explosion in the Eldar ranks.   Putting Phantasm Grenade Launchers is also useful.  Basically you're using a modified Freakshow list/tactic here, which Eldar are quite susceptible to.  

You can't take Armour of Misery + Archangel of Pain on the same model, so this is quite an expensive tactic, especially as you are only likely to put 3 wounds on each unit that's within 9".  I'd be surprised if it's more than 2 units and you can only use it once ....

Yes, I'm aware.  You're right that it is expensive, but I've used it in several games against Eldar and when it works, it REALLY works.  Plus, even if you only kill three models, in most normal squad sizes of 5-10, that's enough for a Ld check, which may be at -2 depending on positioning of the AoM.  It's not a guarantee but against Eldar, Freakshow tactics can be one  of the best tools pure DE has (and something that tends to catch people who haven't played against it before completely by surprise in true DE fashion!).

Thanks guys. I can change up my list, but no allies. Its a different objective based mission each week.

I think I am going to have some deep striking Scourges to take out the shield generator. I'll need about 8 haywire blasters to reliably destroy the generator. I am also toying with blasterborn and an Archon dropping in via a portal to make sure it's good and destroyed. I am going to try and get the Warlord Trait that lets me re-roll reserves. Then my Razorwings, venoms and talos can shoot the crap out of him.

I'll let you know how it goes!

RB

What about the Archangel bomb and Medusa?

If you can change your list up you might do ok. I've played extensively against void shields, usually the network although thats banned in many places for good reason. Anyway heres the thing, once he see's what your bringing he will likely spread out to deny any viable landing zone except MAYBE on top the generator putting you back on lances as the best option to drop it. Last edition I used to defeat such gunlines by objectives and/or with a massive beast pack in assault but thats no longer an option. However reavers are.

I would build for the option of WWP-ing inside the shields if he messes up deployment though for sure. So for example reavers with heat lances, scourges, a lance ravager. Some mix. DSing in reavers is unexpected and its a great tool in the box.

I'd also highly recommend 'going underneath' against this army which is something I tend to do against higher end competitive lists. We can't compete with firepower or value but we can bring some extreme MSU elements that he can't trade profitably with like mandrakes, lone fiends, single sslyth etc (and of course skimmers). Things that take up board space, are fast/forward deploy can threaten his bikes in combat and allow you to play to the mission while still having plenty of points to attack his units directly. Force him out of his shielded zone if possible by sending these expendable elements to play the mission.

Lastly if he does leave his shields and your trading fire then it becomes a game of who jinks first. By this I mean you need ap 2 saturation and not necessarily all in concentration if you get my drift. His downside is the VSG is actually rather small so you can have the advantage of terrain (assuming you guys use that foreign word).  

Either way if I wanted to win here I'd probably leave the combat units at home outside of things like reavers and MSU beasts.

Hey all, I wanted to let you know that I ended up winning that game. I am now 5/0 for the league. One more and I win it all.

Here's how it played out. He had 4 squads of shooterbikes, 2 farseers on bikes (with two of the squads), a wave serpent with dire avengers, three guys with skull faces and missile launchers, a unit of two hornets, a unit of two war walkers, a night spinner, an Avatar, warp spiders, some guys on foot with a warlock, and the void shield gene.

I took two units of two talos with haywire and ichor injectors, six venoms with blasterwarriors, two razorwing jet fighters, a trueborn squad of eight with four blasters in a raider with night shields, and an archon with a blaster and WWP. I also had a Archon's court with two medusae, two of the poison girls, and one sslyth.

The mission was objectives as primary and Kill points as secondary. I was lucky in that I picked the warlord trait that allows re-roll night fight and reserves. I opted to go second.

He set up all his units in the shield area. I set up my talos squads in ruins and reserved the rest for a deep strike. He spent the first two turns shooting the talos and managed to whittle them down to one. I then deep struck everything on the bottom of turn two. The raider landed right next to the generator. I landed the venoms close to the shield and had my warriors dismount and walk through it so they could shoot the generator. I blew up the generator first and then my venoms, who would have been outside the shield area, opened fire on the bikes. Two bike squads fell in turn two and in turn three the blasters and missiles and lances from the Razorings started taking out tanks and walkers.

I was lucky with some things. For example, by final talos instant killed his Avitar with the ichor injector. One of his Farseers failed a fall back test in combat and fled off the table. And my deep striking was almost perfect. By the end, I had knocked him down to a wave serpent, a hornet, and a couple of warp spiders (those things are crazy). After my beta strike, he didn't have enough firepower to get rid of all my MSU. I ended up taking the primary and secondary!

Woot! It's not all doom and gloom out there my brethren!

I wonder how he could take an Avatar when there was

Quote :

No LOW

Also in terms of listbuilding yours was I guess a 7/10 with not much space to get better while his was a 3/10 with some of the weakest Eldar units.

So yes, it is not all doom and gloom if your opponent doesn't play a competitive list while you do.

Ah, the LOW was my mistake, I meant to say no gargantuan monstrous creatures or superheavys.

Seriously, Klaivex Charondyr? Have you even seen how devastating that many (60+) strength six shots a turn can be to Dark Eldar? Or how bad hornets can be, or warp spiders, or dark reapers? Beyond a seer council on bikes, I am having a hard time seeing what he could have brought in a CAD that'd be better. Half the time they were invisible or concealed. And in a Kill Point mission MSU isn't exactly a cakewalk.

But you're right, I guess I'll just go back to another thread and talk about how we need a new codex because even when we win it's because we were faced with a poor opponent with backwards hands.

RB

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

I wonder how he could take an Avatar when there was

Quote :

No LOW

Also in terms of listbuilding yours was I guess a 7/10 with not much space to get better while his was a 3/10 with some of the weakest Eldar units.

Sorry but what units in the list are 'weakest'? The only unit that I wouldn't have considered taking is the Avatar, especially against Dark Eldar. Pretty much everything else is decent to excellent.

Quote :

I am having a hard time seeing what he could have brought in a CAD that'd be better.

As I play both, there is a lot of space to improve.
Just because you do not see it, it does not mean that it does not exist.

Alone the fact that he brought Monofilament weapons against an I5/6 army is a poor choice.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Alone the fact that he brought Monofilament weapons against an I5/6 army is a poor choice.

Grots, Taloi and low AV vehicles all make excellent targets for monofilament weapons. Try again.

Grots, taloi and low AV vehicles make even better targets for cheaper S6 weapons with more shots.

The Nightspinner gets ONE hit against a vehicle or a Talos. That is ONE hit for 115 points.

So why not get rid of the guardian squad (some guys on foot with a warlock), the Reapers (that unit of 3 is another unit of scatterbikes), the Avatar, the Spiders and the Nightspinner and get additional Warwalkers and Hemlocks (and more Scatterbikes) instead?

And then... the deplayment... everything is clumped up under the voidshields and there is still space left open to DS next to the generator -.-

I do not say it was not a deserved victory, but I do say that the Eldar deplyment was pretty much teethless.
I guess that was 1750 points all in all... more than enough space for 120 S6 shots and 7 D Blasts in a normal CAD.

So basically.... Get rid of anything that's not a scatter bike? O.o

Last time I checked, Hemlocks, Wrath of Vaul, Warwalkers, Hornets and Farseers were not Scatterbikes.

The DE tailored his list (which is ok), so why should the CWE not. The DE even knew exactly what was coming. So it was tailored against all-comers. And that is why I say there was a big difference in listbuilding.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Last time I checked, Hemlocks, Wrath of Vaul, Warwalkers, Hornets and Farseers were not Scatterbikes.

Half of which you were claiming were 'weakest' a few posts back. Basically the Eldar guy picked a TAC list and didn't tailor it to the DE. Yes, his list could have been stronger but so what? It wasn't a terrible list by any stretch of the imagination. It had a couple of sub-par units, and we're talking sub-par for the strongest current codex! They're still probably stronger than most of our units!

Quote :

Half of which you were claiming were 'weakest' a few posts back.

Care to quote?

Quote :

Basically the Eldar guy picked a TAC list and didn't tailor it to the DE.

Which is exactly what I was saying?

Quote :

Yes, his list could have been stronger but so what? It wasn't a terrible list by any stretch of the imagination.

In comparison? How far was the DE away from the "stronges possible list" and how far away was the CWE?

Quote :

It had a couple of sub-par units, and we're talking sub-par for the strongest current codex!

Yes. I agree. But how is this a "proof" that our codex is not bad when the starting ground was completely different?
I was merely answering to that "See? I won! Our codex is good!" kind of statement by pointing out that the style of list writing and the relative power level of the lists were way to different for that kind of conclusion.

I am starting to basically believe that our codex is weaker not enought to make us not win, but enought to make jokes about our opponent that had lost to a subpar faction.  
It is a very vile action and is perfectly aligned to the dark eldar way of life to slaughter an opponent with weaker units and army and then have fun of him.
Eventually, the GW give us the only meta-codex of all.
The entire crunch is fluff based in fact, you see?

You're basically arguing that a TAC list built from the strongest codex is terrible in order to continue your relentless assault on our own codex and deny anything positive about it. If a decent list from our codex can take an average list from the Eldar codex then maybe it's not quite as bad as you make out. Giving the Eldar list 3/10 is frankly laughable.